74 THE ASCENT OF THE BODY. 



him as he tries to think from what remote and min- 

 gled sources, from what lands, seas, climates, atmos- 

 pheres, its various parts have been called together, 

 and by what innumerable contributory creatures, 

 swimming, creeping, flying, climbing, each of its 

 several members was wrought and perfected. What 

 ancient chisel first sculptured the rounded columns of 

 the limbs ? What dead hands built the cupola of the 

 brain, and from what older ruins were the scattered 

 pieces of its mosaic- work brought ? Who fixed the 

 windows in its upper walls? What winds and 

 weathers wrought strength into its buttresses ? What 

 ocean-beds and forest glades worked up its colorings ? 

 What Love and Terror and Night called forth the 

 Music? And what Life and Death and Pain and 

 Struggle put all together in the noiseless workshop of 

 the past, and removed each worker silently when its 

 task was done ? How these things came to be Biology 

 is one long record. The architects and builders of 

 this mighty temple are not anonymous. Their names, 

 and the work they did, are graven forever on the walls 

 and arches of the Human Embryo. For this is a 

 volume of that Book in which Man's members were 

 written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as 

 yet there was none of them. 



The Descent of Man from the Animal Kingdom is 

 sometimes spoken of as a degradation. It is an un- 

 speakable exaltation. Recall the vast antiquity of 

 that primal cell from which the human embryo first 

 sets forth. Compass the nature of the potentialities 

 stored up in its plastic substance. Watch all the 

 busy processes, the multiplying energies, the mystify- 

 ing transitions, the inexplicable chemistry of this liv- 



